Displaying these two fundamentally defensive behaviors, especially in ways that are insulting and degrading to others, without a doubt will generate conflict. Keep pushing and you\u2019ll eventually begin to foment violence. This seems to be because these two behaviors represent a an attack on human identity and dignity.<\/p>\n And this is exactly where I see us now \u2014 in a state of degradation, our challenged and divided America. Whatever our side, we cannot hear the other side\u2019s criticisms of us and we believe in our heart of hearts that the other side is wrong, bad, potentially or actually evil. Too many of us are so lost that one of our pleasures is reveling in mockery and ridicule of those others, in put-downs, insults, offenses and righteous outrages. We are too often angry and sad. Perhaps we wouldn\u2019t say<\/em> we get pleasure from the misfortunes of the other side, but privately or unconsciously there it is.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been studying conflict for thirty-five years, ever since the publication of Driving Fear Out of the Workplace<\/a> in 1990. One of the messages of that book, although it is about organizations, not societies is that parties in conflict tend to stay in conflict because of what is called a cycle of mistrust <\/em>\u2013 essentially a reciprocal set of negative beliefs and behaviors directed toward one another, displayed subtly or overtly, but always against<\/em> the other. \u201cShe\u2019s manipulative.\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s patronizing.\u201d \u201cThey don\u2019t care.\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s out of touch.\u201d Such cycles are acted out through withdrawal or behind the scenes badmouthing, side-taking, or a plethora of other petty behaviors; if bad enough via outright attacks and efforts to humiliate supposed enemies and \u201cwin\u201d power over them. When a cycle of mistrust is operating, people don\u2019t even have to articulate their negative beliefs; they don\u2019t have to say the words because feelings<\/em> are picked up quite easily when the background beliefs have morphed into fixed truths.<\/em><\/p>\n Extrapolating to the cultural divide today the fixed truths are everywhere and are extreme: \u201cThey\u2019re racist.\u201d \u201cThey are fascists.\u201d \u201cThey hate America.\u201d \u201cThey want to shut down free speech.\u201d \u201cThey are corrupt.\u201d \u201cThey are hateful.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019re sexist.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019re Marxists.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019re not real Christians.\u201d \u201cThey want to tear everything down.\u201d \u201cThey are violent.\u201d It goes on and on, each side feeling offended, working hard to create the most telling, savage criticisms (though, ironically, often entirely the same, such as accusations of hypocrisy) that quickly devolve into personal insults, justified escalations, rote condemnations. As a society we are lost in the work of proving our allegations, arguing about beliefs as if they were facts, as if they were absolutes.<\/p>\n Nobody in this war is actually trying to understand<\/em> why somone else might feel offended. It\u2019s frankly ludicrous to even imagine it now on a scale that would matter, people openly questioning, asking for information; for instance, asking: \u201cyou know, I notice you saying you think I\u2019m authoritarian. Help me understand what it is I\u2019ve said or done (or not said or done) that\u2019s causing you to feel I\u2019m a fascist.\u201d Or, to use a counter example: \u201cyou know, you\u2019ve suggested I hate this country. Help me understand what I\u2019ve said or done (or not said or done) that\u2019s causing you to see me as hating America.\u201d As I say, ludicrous.<\/p>\n No, no one is doing this because the divide is not about creating an opportunity for meaningful dialogue; it\u2019s about power and being right, actively denying dialogue precisely because we believe the others don\u2019t want it or are not genuine, are deeply wrong, are \u2018bad people\u2019 or some other rationalized cause associated with the cause of saving America. One or both sides might well consider such an invitation to talk directly, honestly, meaningfully as either naive or as a trap, a sign of the very mistrust that keeps driving the conflict. As I say, it\u2019s crazy to even imagine resolution, in part because it\u2019s likely there\u2019s be no agreement on what dialogue even might look like in the context of this war. (It\u2019s certainly not a \u201cdebate\u201d or an argument.) No, at present we are locked in a more visceral combat aimed at taking people down intellectually and emotionally, morally, as part of an increasingly physical war based on defending, protecting and justifying our views while insulting and attempting to hurt others \u2014 from accusations of whataboutism, comments that \u201cown the libs\u201d in a what\u2019s supposed to be a satisfying way to cutting off Maga members of families as if they are dead. This is the way, painfully, the negative cycles escalate, little by little as they say and then all at once based on retribution, contempt, intentional loss of connection and deliberate and conscious retaliation. Each side wants the other to pay \u2014 despite claims and self-righteous claims to the contrary.<\/p>\n \u201cHere, let me explain the truth to you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHere, let me explain the truth about<\/em> you.\u201d <\/p>\n It\u2019s awful. This is the mechanical and power-based tragedy we enforce on ourselves and others, attacking one anothers\u2019 dignity, trying to wound and cancel one another out based on our certainty that we understand each other\u2019s motives and character; a war in which ultimately everyone is simultaneously villain and victim with the purpose of claiming \u201cit\u2019s not our fault.\u201d It\u2019s only natural to wonder who actively benefits from such a war in which actual assassination is quickly becoming a fringe norm.<\/p>\n In my experience, such negative cycles end only<\/em> when people begin to challenge their own inner absolute beliefs about others and begin instead to ask for feedback about themselves and their own behavior. This process of rehumanization happens when people finally decide they are sick of fighting because it\u2019s gotten them nowhere, when they are hurting enough, when they are alone and exhausted enough to<\/em> begin giving up on their negative assumptions about one another and are willing to talk<\/em> to each other in meaningful ways. (And again, not as an argument or debate, but as a real desire to understand and connect.) Often there\u2019s an inkling that maybe the other side is more human than we thought; a flicker of a notion that they mirror us in some important way.<\/p>\n Apparently, we aren\u2019t there yet. But maybe we\u2019re beginning to get ready. And what are we willing to do about it, really? That\u2019s the leadership inquiry \u2014 one we\u2019ll probably have to make into our own souls.<\/p>\n The post Comments on a Divided Country<\/a> first appeared on .<\/a>. There are two critically important behaviors that cause conflict on any scale \u2014 personal, group, or societal: Pushing a negative, reductive belief about an opponent as an absolute truth Rejecting meaningful personal feedback of any kind Displaying these two fundamentally defensive behaviors, especially in ways that are insulting and degrading to others, without a doubt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7057357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111881,134966,12121,219585,104465,106402,177147],"tags":[26867,1030,37406],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7057356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-choices","category-conflict","category-consciousness","category-fate-and-destiny","category-motivation","category-trust","category-wounds","tag-comments","tag-country","tag-divided"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"_DKO3088\"](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54810797737_1a98b9c889_z.jpg\")
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